National News

Burglars Who Hit FBI in 1971 Finally Come Forward

by Kate Seamons, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – The inner details of a March 8, 1971, hit on the FBI office in Media, Pa., are finally coming to light—from the mouths of those who wielded the crowbars. An eight-person antiwar group (made up in part of professors, a day-care director, and a 20-year-old self-taught lock picker) descended on the office while the rest of the country watched Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier go 15 rounds, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The New York Times reports they spent months casing the building, with one member posing as a college student inquiring about job options to gain access and determine there was no alarm system. They picked a lock, used a crowbar to break another, stuffed suitcases with as many as 1,000 documents, and fled in getaway cars, later meeting at a farmhouse to review their haul—which included files they mailed to reporters, files that shook the FBI "to its core," per the Inquirer.